A presidential adviser says AI demand could pull forward the next phase of fab construction by more than a decade, and that the country needs somewhere to put it.
South Korea’s government is in talks with Samsung Electronics and SK Hynix about the next phase of large-scale investment in chip manufacturing, a presidential adviser said on Wednesday, adding that an announcement on a new chip cluster would follow soon.
The remarks, from presidential policy adviser Kim Yong-beom, framed the conversation less as a negotiation than as a logistics problem the country has not yet solved.
The pressure, Kim told a discussion panel, comes from demand. “Exponential and explosive” growth in orders driven by the AI industry could require the two companies to speed up construction of new facilities by more than 10 years, bringing forward to 2034 or 2035 capacity that had been planned for later. The schedule is being rewritten by how fast the chips are selling.
The 💜 of EU techThe latest rumblings from the EU tech scene, a story from our wise ol' founder Boris, and some questionable AI art. It's free, every week, in your inbox. Sign up now!That creates a question Kim was candid about. “Looking ahead to the next stage after seven or eight years, we are faced with the challenge of finding a massive new site for a second cluster,” he said.
